Solo (NATA)

Author Comments

Hello, Newgrounds! First, I should give credit where credit is due:
Thanks to Christopher Bingham (you probably know him as Bing) for letting me use his wonderful music in this video. I highly recommend that you check out more of his music at highfivespaceship.bandcam p.com. There's some awesome stuff there.
Thanks to the voice actors who helped me out with this project! It was great working with you guys!

Well, this video is another step away from my comfort zone. The story wasn't some huge social metaphor or anything, and there isn't any deeper meaning in this one. To fit with this round's NATA theme, "a true companion", I made it about a boy and his imaginary friend. I hope that it wasn't too difficult to understand, though, because although it is more literal this time, it is probably just as surreal, if not more so, especially when the friend helps the boy retreat into his mind.

This was the first video I made since early 2010 that had voice actors other than my sister and I. The extra effort of bringing microphones into school and getting people in a room to be quiet while recording is worth the end result, I think. Of course, people weren't entirely quiet, so you can hear some bits and pieces of other people talking behind the actual voices. This is because I did the recording of the protagonists' voices in my crowded computer science class (the only location where I had access to both my voice actors and a computer at the same time.) Hopefully I can organize things better next time so that doesn't happen. I should mention that the voice of the teacher is Kpheeyat's, a Newgrounds user, and he's a great voice actor and if anyone needs voice work, I'd recommend him!

As far as style goes, I tried doing more frame-by-frame than in previous videos and, for the most part, I tried to not be lazy. It turned out pretty well in the end. I had intended to draw some of the frames on paper and scan them, but due to technical difficulties with my cameras and scanner, that didn't happen for this video. Maybe next time. I did try working in Toon Boom for this one, which was nice, and allows for some more complicated and interesting visuals than Flash typically allows.